And When Your Con Was Over
by GoddessofSnark
Summary: He made the mistake of opening the wrong door and all the skeletons that he had jammed into his closet have come tumbling out.
1. I've Been Thinking

A/N-Standard disclaimer, don't own them, they belong to Tim and Allan and the crew at NBC/Tailwind. I just am borrowing them. This idea had been niggling around in the back of my brain since the first time I saw Wrong Place Wrong Time and Garret mentioning that he ran off to try and pursue his musical career...The title comes from a song by the band Filter (of Hey Man Nice Shot fame) and the song's called Consider This...

* * *

He stalked through the halls, wondering what the hell could be so important to drag him out here when he had work to do. "Rene, why am I here? Whatever it is, it had better be good." He didn't like the grim look that he got from the woman. He didn't like the way her lips were set into a very tight line, the way that she looked up at him with eyes that seemed to echo with disappointment.

"Would you care to explain this?" She handed him a file. He opened it and looked at the photos inside, draining of color as he looked at each of the sets of pictures inside. He hadn't seen these pictures in twenty years; he was hoping never to see them again. He thought he had gotten rid of them.

"Rene-" He started and she glared at him.

"Eight. Any more that hasn't been dug up yet?" He looked at the sets, each of them, one from the front and one from the side, standard procedure. He shook his head.

"That's it."

"That's eight too many." He frowned. These were supposed to stay a secret. These were part of who he used to be, not who he had become.

"Rene-" He began and she cut him off with a glare. He sat in one of her chairs, trying to think of something to explain them away.

"Eight. You were arrested eight times, under six different names. In five different states. And I'm only just finding out about this?" He stared down at the desk, avoiding the file that held pictures of him from his youth.

"I tried to-"

"You covered it up. You covered it up so no one would know, so that you could go on to become the chief and live your happy life while other people who are every bit as qualified-in fact more so because they don't have a criminal past-are stuck in low level jobs."

"It was a long time ago." It was. He changed. Cleaned up his act. Fixed his life. Became what he was.

"I'm having the records sent in; would you like to tell me what you were in for before I find out?" He stayed silent. "Garret, tell me now before I look at those reports and find out myself." He looked at her.

"I changed, I stopped being the stupid kid I was when I got into college and I covered that all up because I didn't want to taint the man I am with-"

"You didn't want to taint the man you are? I worked my ass off to get you back and what do I find out? That I've got a convicted felon working as a high-appointed official. What else did you cover up?" He was silent again. She didn't need to know. "Tell me, because I will find out." He looked at her and opened his mouth when the door opened and her clerk came in with a stack of files. She glared at him as the clerk left. "Now are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to read them off?" He stared her down, hoping vainly to stop her.

She reached for the first file and flipped it open. "Defendant, Garret Macy, charge, public drunkenness." She frowned. At least that was the first one that she got. That one wasn't that bad. That was a misdemeanor. A night in jail and some community service cleared that one right up. She picked up the second one. "Defendant, Daniel Macy, charge, criminal possession of an illegal substance." One eyebrow quirked upwards as she looked at him.

"Rene-" He shifted in the seat.

"There's six more, would you like to tell me them?" She picked up the next folder. "Defendant, Garret Headon, charges, criminal possession of an illegal substance, and disorderly conduct." He shifted again as she looked at him again, picking up the next file. "Defendant, Daniel Macy, charge, criminal possession of an illegal substance with intent to distribute." She slammed the file down on her desk. "Not only were you a two bit junkie but you-" He glared at her.

"I told you, it was a long time ago. I was a kid-" She flipped through some of the files.

"Twenty two? Twenty four? Hardly a kid-" He frowned.

"It was half a lifetime ago." She shook her head and reached for another file.

"Defendant, Garret Jones, charge, soliciting the services of a prostitute." He had forgotten about that one. She picked up another one. "Defendant, Daniel Jones, not very creative with the names, were you? Charges, criminal possession of an illegal substance and driving while impaired."

She picked up the second to last one. "Defendant, Garret Macy, charge, misdemeanor battery." She looked up at him.

"It was a bar fight." that one was somewhat acceptable. More so than some of his others. She picked up the last one.

"Defendant, Garret Jones, charge-" She paused. This one had to come last. "Accessory to murder?" He sighed and shifted again. "What the hell did you do?"

"I told him where to find the guy he killed. They wanted to put me away so they found something they could get me on. Look, I know I fucked up, but I've changed-" She looked at the stack of files.

"You may have, but you think the public's going to care if you have or not? They're only going to see high public official and eight crimes. Not all little misdemeanors, either. We're not New Jersey, we don't tolerate corruption, you can't just cover your tracks and buy your way out of this again. Someone knows, someone sent me the mug shots, someone knows all about your sordid past and I'm sorry Garret, but I have to cover my own ass before this one becomes public." He looked at her.

"Rene-"

"I brought you back without even thinking to dig up whatever I could on you. I thought it was just one big mistake, but I guess it's not, now is it?" He frowned.

"You weren't the DA when I was hired, you weren't the DA when I was appointed chief, I passed both background checks then-"

"Because all the major identifying factors were changed. In fact, the only way they could get you was from the inmate numbers on the mug shots. But there's no denying that mug shot Garret, yeah, it may be you thirty years ago, but it's still you." He looked at her.

"Who knows?"

"You, me, and whoever sent me the mug shots. How much time did you do, total?" He thought for a minute.

"A year and a half when you put it all together. Plead down most of them, a month here, two months there, got released on good behavior, the longest I did was six months for possession with intent." She looked at him. He was trying to be cool about it, trying not to let the utter sickened feeling that was sitting in the pit of his stomach at the knowledge that his past had finally caught up to him show.

"Great." She took a deep breath. "There goes my bid for being DA again. No chance of winning the election now." He looked at her. It was one thing that he had fucked himself over; he wasn't going to bring her down with him.

"I'll resign. Or fire me, or whatever needs to be done." She looked at him.

"I don't want to, but I can't let you-" He understood. "I have to think about who's going to replace you-" He just hoped for the sake of the rest of the morgue that it wasn't going to be Slokum.

"I suppose I should go clean out my desk." She nodded and he could see the slight trace of pain in her eyes. She really didn't want to do this. It had been a matter of time, he knew it. He had started to think that maybe he had cheated the clock and would not be found out until he retired, but that obviously wasn't the case.

The walk back to the morgue was a considerably more solemn affair. The job was all he had left anymore. He sighed in resignation. He had enough nested away to last him for a while. A few years. Until he died, if he really wanted it to. He found a package waiting on his desk, a rather large box that contained a small manila envelope. He opened the envelope and found it to be even more pictures along with a few documents he never wanted to see again in his life. There was a letter with them and he read it over slowly.

_Dr. Macy,_

_I thought I'd send you the box, save you the trouble of finding one to clean out your desk. If you're getting this, you've undoubtedly been fired. Now I'm not looking to blackmail you, but I just thought you might want to go down easy and leave your dignity intact, I'm sure you don't want yourself smeared all over the front page, although I'm sure you'll wind up there anyway, too many people have a habit of talking. I've kept quiet on everything else though, but I thought you might want some reminders of your past. I'm sure you don't want your ex-wife, the only one you acknowledge as your ex, at least, finding out about Christie and Serenity. Or any of your friends finding out about some of your bad habits. And you certainly don't want the medical board to find out about that little problem with your records, now do you? It might be best for you to just leave before the scandal strikes, at least then you don't wind up in the middle of it like the poor governor of New Jersey did. There's still more than your job that stands to be affected by all that I've found out once you start to dig, and I suggest you keep quiet or else I won't. Have a nice day. _

He wanted to break down. His entire past had come toppling down on top of him. He had made the mistake of opening the wrong door and all the skeletons he had piled in his closet came tumbling out. He sighed and began methodically removing the contents of his desk. Pictures, personal effects, his records, his CD's, everything. He was interrupted by a knock on the doorframe before Jordan walked in. "You're not doing what I think you're doing." He looked at her.

"Walcott's going to be announcing my replacement." He told her, continuing to pack his desk, afraid that if he looked at her, he would snap.

"What the hell happened?" She asked and he kept his focus on the desk.

"Let's just say that the Moreau case is just the tip of the iceberg."

"What do you mean?" He took a deep breath and looked at her, not quite meeting her in the eyes.

"I mean certain things that I've done have caught up to me, and I'm getting out now while I still can." The last thing to go into his box was the Victrola, placed on top of the other carefully stacked items. He pulled out the bottle of scotch from his desk and the two glasses, pouring them each a measure.

"What did you do that got you fired?" He gave a small snort of laughter as he downed his glass with one long gulp.

"Stuff that should have stopped me from getting hired." He looked around the office one last time before downing his second glass. "Look, I'll see you around, OK?" His voice had that slightly nervous quality; he was talking faster than usual, she saw it before when he was stressed.

"Garret-"

"I never really liked this job. I suppose this is a blessing in disguise." He picked up the box and walked out the door, leaving her behind.


	2. About What You Said

A/N-Reading back over this, I realized that it's definitly not what I like, but I can't think of any way to fix it. So if a chapter suddenly winds up replaced, you know why. It's because I thought of a way to fix it. I love the concept, and I love the way that the plot is progressing, it's just I hate the way that the words are being formed to tell the plot. But hey, maybe you can tell me what the problem is..

* * *

He sat there sprawled on the couch, halfway through a bottle of scotch when someone knocked on the door. He opened it to find Jordan there with a pizza in hand. "Now, are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on? Because I've heard more rumors in the past four hours about you than I've heard in my entire life." He shrugged.

"What are they saying?"

"That you're a drug addict, you've been married five times, that you killed somebody, and that you cheated your way through your medical degree and the only reason why you started working in the ME's office was because you're such a hack you'd kill somebody."

"I was, it was three times not five, and I actually passed through med school." She looked at him.

"They're true?" He shrugged again and grabbed a slice from the box.

"Every rumor has a grain of truth in it somewhere." She sat there, staring at him, stunned.

"So your whole life has been one big lie? I thought you hated your father for being a con man." He laughed.

"I hated my father because he was a drunk who kept saying he'd be around and never was. It would've been better if he just stayed away and didn't keep coming back saying that this time was going to be different." He poured her out a glass from the bottle as well, frowning at how empty it was getting.

"What else don't I know about you? I thought I was your best friend-" He looked at her.

"No one else knew about that until today. Except the people involved, and I don't think they link the Garret then to the Garret now. I buried that all when I got into college, and made sure it wasn't going to get out. Except someone found it."

"So not only do you have a murky past, but you hid it on top of things?" He nodded.

"Sounds about right." He poured another glass out. He wanted to get as wasted as humanely possible. Hell, drinking himself to death sounded good right about now. She had the same look of disappointment that Rene had had.

"So you're not the man I thought you were." It wasn't a question, but a statement. He shrugged.

"Depends on how you define that. I got into college and changed. Became what I am and put my past behind me. As far behind me as I could get it." She was as far away from him on the couch as she could get and it felt as if there was wall between them.

"You mean you buried your past so that you wouldn't have to see it." He nodded.

"I got into med school, I couldn't-look, some of the stuff I did should have even kept me from being admitted to med school, much less getting a job as a doctor. Especially not the chief. I didn't ask to work my way up the ladder, I just did my best and got what I should have gotten. I acted as if it never happened. Hell the guy in those photos isn't me, I've changed from him."

"What photos?" She asked. He laughed slightly and fished the envelope out. She looked at them all.

"Jesus Christ Garret-" He looked at her. "You were-"

"A good for nothing dropout." Eight mug shots, a few candids of him showing off just how wasted he could get, too many pictures of the pale sickly thin boy he had been.

"God, you looked horrible." He gave a small laugh.

"Hell, I could have been a poster child for the anti drug campaign.'Become a dirty wanna be rock star involved with sex, drugs and rock and roll, and you too can look this pathetic.'" He was drunk and he didn't care. He honestly didn't care. He had no reason left to care. He lost the one thing he had, and there was no chance in hell of him being hired again. Hell, there was no chance he'd be able to get a job in an ME's office anywhere.

"Garret-" She began and he looked at her. "What else have you hidden?"

"The better part of eight years of my life. Four of them aren't' that well hidden, the four that I was on tour with the band, about the only thing that's hidden from those, really hidden is Serenity. It's the next four, after the band broke up that I hide. No one needs to know about living in 12 places in four years, and that's just actual houses, that's not counting living in a car or anything like that." She looked at him, slightly shocked.

"You lived in a car?"

"I lived in a van for four years with three other guys and a whole bunch of random girls touring the country and called it being a rock star, a few months in a car was nothing."

"You really lived the sex drugs and rock and roll life?" He shrugged and downed another glass.

"Too much emphasis on the first two, not enough on the third to make it." She looked through the photos. He watched her as she flipped through each of them, the way she reacted to some of them. He couldn't tell which ones seemed to shock her more, the ones of him wasted beyond belief, or the mug shots.

"What did you do?"

"For those four years? Be the worst person that I could. I thought it was cool to try and beat Keith Moon for being the most wasted drummer in existence." She laughed slightly.

"You really regret what you did, don't you?" He shrugged.

"I regret people finding out what I did all that time ago. I can forget about what I was. Until someone else brings it up." He accepted that part of his past. It was what it was; he couldn't change it. But what he hated about it was just how damaging it had become. If he hadn't wanted to ever become something, he wouldn't care at all. To be quite honest, he enjoyed every second of that life. But he woke up one morning and realized that if he wanted to make it to thirty he'd have to clean up, at least a little.

So he had. He cleaned up; he went to college and he wound up in med school. He buried his past and forgot about it. "You changed." She pointed out and he shrugged.

"Maybe." He leaned back against the couch.

"So what really happened to you?" He shrugged.

"I'm sure Nigel can dig it up, if someone else could, Nigel can." She looked at him. "Just go Jordan, get the answers on your own, you don't need me to tell you that I fucked up my life." She kept her gaze on him. "Go." He repeated and she pulled him into her arms.

"You're not the man you were." He didn't know who she was trying to convince. Himself or her.


	3. It's Been Going Round in My Head

A/N I'm posting this from school to show my friend how to post a story on fanfic. Everyone say hi Katie! Because's sitting here right next to me. Of course by the time you read this,we're probably not going to be here anymore. She's mean and doesn't want to say hi to all of you though...and she called me a looser. runs off and cries and writes about it because I'm emo like that Right, anyway, enough of me being a crackhead...that's Garret's job in this fic!

* * *

He opened the door to the knock. He knew who it was. He stepped back and poured her a glass. "Have you done anything aside from sit here and drink?"

"Went out to buy another few bottles." She frowned.

"You could be doing something." He looked at her as he at least poured himself a glass. He never felt right about drinking from the bottle when there was someone else there.

"What?" He took a long gulp. "What can I be doing? It's all out, I lost my job, the fact that my entire life is a sham came out, what am I supposed to be doing?" She was silent before she pulled out a few sheets of paper.

"What the hell happened to you?" She asked quietly, looking over the paper. He peered over her shoulder to be looking at his arrest record.

"I changed."

"Why? Not that it's a bad thing, but people don't just get up one morning, sweep all this under the rug and start living a legitimate lifestyle out of nowhere."

"I woke up one morning and realized if I wanted to live past twenty seven I'd have to do something. That if I kept on going that way I'd be dead." She nodded. "Dead or in jail for the rest of my life."

"So why become a doctor?" He shrugged.

"I started off a music major, I never wanted to be a doctor. But after tons and tons of my mother's ragging, after thinking about the way that my best friend went off and wound up fighting in a war and that I didn't want to think about doing that, I switched to pre med. And just stuck with it." She flipped through more of the papers. "I just woke up and applied to college one day and from there became this."

"You just woke up and applied? But you dropped out-" He chuckled slightly.

"Yeah, there was that." She flipped through a few more sheets.

"According to this it says that you graduated with a 3.2 gpa from Trenton Central high school in the top quarter of your class-"

"The last two years were invented." She nearly spit out the drink.

"Invented? You forged your high school transcript?" He shrugged and took another sip.

"Hey, if you look, it falls about right with my abilities. No one would doubt it. A C in history both years, C in Spanish, A in chem, B in physics, B's in math, it's all just about right. I just decided to save a little bit of time."

"So you invented your grades. How the hell did you do that?"

"Picked an out of state inner city school and said I went there, got a friend of a friend to add me in. They just thought that I got lost in the void when I came in and asked for my transcript, looked me up and handed it over. They had so many kids in and out that they didn't care. I didn't think it would matter, I wanted to go on to do something like be a studio drummer and thought a degree would help. I never thought I'd become a doctor when I did that."

"How many people know about that?" He thought for a moment.

"You and me. Johnny, the guy that did it died not too long after doing it, got caught up in a bad deal." She nodded.

"If that gets out-"

"I'm already screwed. It's just one more thing that'll fuck me over, once you're over your head, what do another few inches matter?"

"How can you just sit here with all this going on? I can't walk into any public building in the city without hearing about this. I walk into the morgue and it's all I hear, I walk into the police station and it's all I hear, I walk into the courthouse and it's all I hear. How can you not care?"

"It's already out, what can I do? Say that it never happened? It did, that's the thing. It did happen, and it's getting out. Everything I did wrong is coming to light, what the hell am I supposed to say about it? The only thing I can say is that I fucked up and I changed, and that does nothing, except make me slightly more sympathetic to the public."

"Garret, you need whatever it takes to get-"

"To get what? I'm never going to get another job again, I'll never make it past the "have you ever been convicted of a crime" line on the application. Hell, that's if they'll even look at my application after all this." He poured himself another glass and drank it down.

"But you're good-"

"Do you think they'll believe that? Think about Jordan, you hear about someone in the same spot as me, finding out that the life that they've lived is a whole big lie, that everything that happened for the first twenty five years of their life has been buried away, because of all the various illegal things that happened, would you hire them?" She was silent. "Hell, I wouldn't hire myself."

"Garret-" She trailed off.

"I wouldn't even date myself, I'm just glad Maggie didn't find out-" He trailed off and she glared at him.

"Maggie knew nothing?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Not about what I was, not about what I used to date-"

"Would this be the aforementioned Serenity?" He grinned sheepishly.

"Yeah."

"Was she it?" He laughed.

"She was one of many. There was Serenity. We learned very fast that there is a big difference between sleeping together in a van strung out and drunk and living together. Then there were the dozens of girls, then there was Christie, a word of advice, never get invovled with a hooker, and then I cleaned up. Graduated from med school, got a good job, met Maggie, got married, and started over."

"You dated a hooker?"

"Married her." Jordan looked shocked.

"And Serenity too?" He nodded.

"And Maggie never knew?" He shook his head.

"She never asked." It was the truth. She never once asked him if he had been married before. And he didn't offer up that information.

"You never told her that she was wife number three?" He shrugged.

"I didn't think it was important."

"Did you think maybe she might have?"

"I didn't love either of them." It was the truth.

"But you married them?"

"Serenity was all good strung out sex. Two years of it in a van going back and forth across the country doing the whole musician thing. After the band broke up, I thought getting married and having a house and everything was what was supposed to come next. We never really loved each other, not enough to make a marriage work. And Christie, well, Christie was at the lowest point of my low, I thought I loved her just because she was there, because I could pour my heart out to her when I was wasted and she just listened. Not to mention she was a knockout blonde." She looked at him.

"But you loved Maggie?"

"More than I loved them."

"Yet you didn't tell her?" He sighed. This was starting to run in a circle.

"Jordan, be perfectly honest, would you want me, knowing what I am?" She was silent. "Knowing my past, would you want to even date me, much less marry me?"

"Aside from the whole bad boy thing-" He glared at her. "Honestly, I don't know. I mean, you're, well, you're Garret, I know what you're like-"

"You know what I pretend to be like."

"How you act every single day." He chuckled slightly.

"Act being the key word-"

"But you changed." He shrugged and downed the rest of his glass.

"Maybe." She glared at him. "Look, Jordan, just go, worry about your own life." He looked down into his glass, not wanting to look at her.

"Garret-"

"Go. Don't worry about me." She leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

"You're going to get through this." She told him, walking out the door, leaving him alone to sit and drink.


	4. Ive Been Thinking

A/N This isn't a happy fic, if you haven't noticed already, and it just gets worse and worse and worse. And worse. And did I mention it's even angstier than Long Slow Burn? Only in this one there's no nightmares. Well, none yet, there's a nightmare scene playing in my head that I don't know if I'm going to fit in here or someplace else. I'm still not all that fond of the way that it's turning out, but it seems to be going over pretty well...I think my complaint with this is that it's a lot more dialouge heavy than anything else I've written short of the script I'm working on, I usually try to avoid dialouge like the plauge, but it's hard not to tell the story through it in this case.

* * *

He stared down at the small yellow pills in front of him. Just crush one up. Not so bad. Easy. It wasn't as if he hadn't done it before. He reached for one of the two spoons and placed the pill on it. Forty dollars each. A rip off. But it was worth it. He had the money, he could afford it. He had just nestled the other spoon on top of it when there was a knock on the door. "Go away Jordan." He knew who it was. The knocking grew more persistant. "Don't want you here."

"Tough, I'm here, now let me in or I'm breaking in." He sat there and he heard her scratching at the lock.

"You meant it, didn't you?" He asked, opening the door to find her crouched at the level of the lock.

"Yeah. I did." She held up a bag of Chineese.

"Are you trying to redeem me by singlehandedly bringing every single takeout place in the city of Boston back into the black?" She laughed slightly and kicked up on the couch. He stood to the side for a minute as she looked over what was spread on the coffee table.

"Garret you weren't going to-" He gave a small snort.

"What does it matter?" She glared at him.

"What does it matter? You've spent the better part of your life trying to get away from this and here you are-"

"Here I am what? The secrets out, everyone knows what I was, it's no big surprise if I go back to it." He grabbed the spoons from the coffee table pressing down on the top one, crushing the pill into a fine powder to prove his point.

"What you were. Not who you are." He laughed slightly and tapped the powder out onto a jewel case from some CD that he had left out, pushing it around with a credit card.

"It's still a part of me. You never quite loose your taste for it. You can go without it for years and years, but it's still there in the back of your mind-the only reason why they say it gets easier by the day is because each day you get more and more used to doing without. Not because you don't want it, not because you don't crave it, you just get used to the cravings."

"So? You've gone a quarter of a century without it-"

"And I'm sick of having to wake up every morning with that nagging thought in my head that one line won't hurt. I'm sick of thinking about it. I'm sick of wanting it so badly that I can taste it, that I can feel it without quite having it. It doesn't matter any more." He formed two matching lines with the powder, looking at them as he rolled up a dollar bill.

"You don't have to do this you know, what are you trying to prove with it?" He shrugged as he toyed with the bill.

"Not trying to prove anything. Just miss the feeling. I can do it guilt free now, it's not like I have to worry about screwing up my job or anything with it. It's not like I have to worry about getting hooked again. Even if I do, it doesn't matter." He could see the pain in her eyes as she reached out for him. He half wanted to shrug off her touch.

"Garret, please, don't." He met her gaze. He'd never heard that tone from her, she sounded so hurt. He sighed and set down the dollar, careful not to disturb the powder.

"I suppose it can wait. I've gone twenty five years, what's another few hours?" She glared at him. "I told you to just leave me alone and forget about me though. Save yourself the trouble. That's all I am." She looked at him, that same sad look she had given him minutes before.

"You're a good man-"

"I pretend to be a good man. The act's up. No use in pretending any more." She glared at him. "Look, just because you believed the facade that I put up-"

"It wasn't a facade." He rolled his eyes.

"How would you know? You're not the one who lived it." She wasn't the one who hid behind a mask of stoicism, of doing the right thing. She wasn't the one who acted as if everything was perfect in his life, when in reality all the perfection was just a lie.

"You had to actually be the man you pretended to be-it was just who you became." He gave a snort of laughter.

"Every single morning I've thought about going back to this," He gestured down at the table, "First it was Maggie that kept me going, then it was Abby, then it was work, then it was the urge to prove that I was better than everyone else. Now I have no reason to prove myself, no reason to be better than anyone. Nothing to stop me now."

"I'm not a good enough reason?" He looked at her.

"Jordan-" She stared him down. He didn't know. He honestly didn't. "Look, I told you to just leave, If it's going to hurt you, best to get out now while the going's good. Save yourself and all that good crap." He reached for the dollar bill.

"If you do that I'll-"

"You'll do what? What can you do? There's nothing you can do to stop me." He could see the tears welling up in her eyes and he looked away.

"You're so damn selfish you can't see past your own gratification, can you? That's all that concerns you, yourself." He laughed, a rich full laugh, but one with no humor behind it.

"You know, I never thought you were that stupid as to have never noticed before."

"You don't give a damn about anything but what pleases you, do you? You don't care about the way it effects other people. You don't have a caring bone in your body, do you? It's no wonder that Abby hates you-" He glared at her.

"You don't need to point that out." He rolled the dollar bill between his fingers, playing with it, waiting for her to leave.

"Yeah, well I think I did. What'll it take Garret, what'll it take to stop you?" He shook his head.

"Nothing. Like I said, just leave me in peace, and forget about me, save yourself the grief."

"I'm not just going to give up on you and let you waste away."

"Why not?"

"Would you let me get away with this?" He looked at her. She had a point. He would have stopped her, he would have chained her to her bed if he needed to to stop her from going down this path. But only because he knew what lay down this path, he knew what was going to inevitably follow. But he didn't care.

"No, but you haven't already fucked up your life."

"And you know that how?"

"Because when I met you you were a burnt out med student who went straight into med school after college, and who went straight into college after high school who had a loving, if dysfunctional family, and you can actually remember your entire life. You don't have a years long void where your past should be because you were too strung out to remember it. You don't have skeletons in your closet. A few bones perhaps, but I've got an entire graveyard."

"And you changed, you put all that behind you."

"I buried it. That's what you do with skeletons, you bury them. And they all just clawed back up like some bad zombie flick."

"But this isn't the movies." He shrugged.

"No. Movies you can stop and rewind. You can't rewind a life. It's over and done, it's all come out, only thing left to do is take the edge off the pain." She sighed.

"So you're really going to do this? Just give up?"

"What's there to fight? We're running in circles with this, just give up, please. For your own sake."

"I'm not giving up on you Garret-" He shrugged. "-I'll stay here all night if I have to."

"Well then, sit and make yourself comfortable." He rerolled the bill and she just looked at him. "I told you to leave. You didn't. Therefore-" She just shook her head. Somehow that made him feel worse than if she started screaming at him.

"Therefore you're just going to throw your entire life away." He shrugged.

"I already did that. Either leave, or stop having this conversation, it's getting redundant. He leaned his head forward, it was a motion that was so easy to get reaccustomed to. He hadn't done this in years, but it came back naturally to him. He looked up to find her staring at him, slightly shocked, but he tried not to think about her, and instead focused on inhaling the line of fine powder in front of him.

He pulled away to find her still staring at him, tears in her eyes, but not crying. She was refusing to let any tears fall over this. He smiled slightly as the feeling started to wash over him, as the pure unadulterated bliss hit. "Why?" She asked as he leaned back against the couch, relaxing.

"Because it's good." He leaned back and closed his eyes, letting the nod overtake him.


	5. About What You Were

A/N So SarcasticRealist, you get your way...I'm in the middle of writing chapter 11 and it takes a G/J twist. But there's another twist on top of that. Well, if you know the rest of the lyics, you can pretty much figure it out. Enjoy.

* * *

He looked up a long time later to find her still sitting on the couch next to him, unmoved. "You know, you can stretch out if you want." He kicked his legs up on the couch, giving her plenty of room to do the same. Her eyes met his and he could see the disappointment in them.

"Garret-" He shook his head.

"Look, you're the one that came over, I told you, if you didn't want to put up with it to leave. You stayed. But I'm not going to have this argument, not now." She glared at him.

"No, you're too wasted to." He chuckled slightly.

'Yeah. I am." He leaned back again. She was still staring at him. He grabbed the glass of scotch from the table and took a sip, trying to wash away the bitter taste dripping down his throat.

"You know, you of all people should know-" He chuckled.

"I know what I'm doing. Don't worry, I'm not going to drop dead in front of you." There was a part of him that was telling him that this wasn't smart, that it'd been so long since he'd last done this that he had no clue how his body was going to react, but he knew what to look out for. Besides, she passed med school, if anything happened, she knew what to do.

"Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but-" He shook his head.

"You know how many people are out there that actually made a concious choice to do this? To live the rest of their lives like this? More than just me, I can tell you that. There's lots of people who made the choice to forget about all of life's little problems for the rest of their lives. I can afford to, I don't see why I can't. It's not like I'm the homless junkie down in Roxbury-"

"What happens when you run out of money?" He shrugged.

"I have a couple of hundred thousand in the bank-not to mention stocks. I didn't have to work a day in my life after I turned 40. I'm not going to run out. Even if I had a hundred dollar a day habit-which even at my worst I didn't have-I have enough money to last me a decade." He could feel the nod starting to wear off, could feel the slight pain settling into his stomach, the first trace of a headache.

He looked down at the other line there, before looking at her. "So this is what you want from your life?" She asked, looking down at the line as well. "Waiting for one buzz to fade and then going right on to the next one?" He shrugged.

"It feels good."

"So does sex." He laughed.

"Yeah, but I don't have the energy to screw a woman every hour." She smiled, slightly. "But the fact of the matter is that I've made a choice, and I'm going to stick with it."

"You've chosen to throw your life away."

"If you want to see it that way." She glared at him. "Look, I already told you, I'm not going to have this argument."

"What if you get your job back?" He shrugged.

"On the nonexistent chance that I do get my job back, then I'll go back to only drinking too much. And you can stop glaring, it's loosing it's effect." He took a deep breath, trying to fight off the wave of nausea that hit him and shifted slightly to make himself more comfortable.

"You feel completely OK with what you're doing, not a hint of regret?" He shrugged.

"Only that I didn't think of this sooner." She just stared at him. "I told you, you don't like it, leave. That simple. But you're not going to talk me out of it."

"Can anyone?" He shook his head, regretting the action almost as soon as he did it.

"I'm set. You can't teach an old dog new tricks." She rolled her eyes.

"Would you at least stop making excuses for it?" He looked at her.

"I'm not. I know what I'm doing, and I'm not trying to give a reason why, aside from the fact that I like it. That's all. It's really not so bad for you, provided you're careful. You've seen it, most drug related deaths are due to bad practice rather than the substance itself."

"And you're using that to justify why you're not going to become just another junkie?"

"I never said I wasn't." She wasn't sure what hurt her more, the fact that he was doing this at all, or the fact that he didn't care about the consequences. "But it's not like I'm going to become some bum living on the street over this either. It's just enough to make me forget and nothing more."

"What about your responsibilities?"

"What responsibilities? I don't have a job anymore, Abby's all grown up. I don't even have a dog to take care of."

"Is that what it'll take?"

"I'll turn around and bring it right back to the pound." She sighed. "Give up Jordan, you're not going to be able to convince me otherwise."

"It's just that-how can you be doing this to yourself when you stopped me from doing it to myself? All I wanted to do was curl up and waste away and you refused to let me. You pretty much forced me into my job, you've forced me to at least come to workable terms with my mother's death, and here you are when faced with a problem going and wasting yourself away."

"You still have most of your life to live. Your fucked up past isn't your fault. Mine is. I'm the only one to blame for what I did, and well, I took the consequences. I gave up my job, most likely going to give my my medical license, considering the fact that the entire way I got into med school was on a sham, and put up with being smeared all over the front page headlines. That ex boyfriend of yours already got a good start on things." He gestured to the paper in front of him.

"I can't believe-"

"It's out already Jordan, he's just doing his job."

"But still-"

"What? You don't think half the city doesn't already know? Even if it didn't make the papers it'd still make it around the city in a matter of days."

"But-"

"But what? You can't protect me Jordan, not this time. Just give up."

"I don't give up."

"This time, you should."

"Well I'm not."

"You're only going to wind up hurting yourself over this, and I don't want to see you hurt."

"If you don't want to see me hurt, then why do it?"

"Because I'm a selfish bastard, that's why." She looked at him and shook her head.

"Fine then, you want to kill yourself, go right ahead. But I'm not going to gloss over it, you want to go on and do this, go right ahead, but you're just going to let everyone know that deep down inside all you are is a pathetic, selfish coward who when faced with a problem gives in and goes right back to your old vices." She got up and walked out, leaving him feeling strangely alone. Another surge of pain and nausea swept through his body and he looked at the other line for a long minute before rolling up the dollar bill and slowly inhaling.


	6. It's A Messy, Messed Up Blur

A/N Garret is a wreck in this, he really is. But he just wants to keep going...Don't you just hate that, when a character refuses to let go of something?

* * *

"Go away." He growled at the door, wishing whoever it was would dissapear. It wasn't Jordan. He learned Jordan's schedule. She'd stop by once a day to make sure he was alive. Occasionally they'd talk. When he let her in.

"Garret? Garret let me in." He sighed and Hurriedly stuffed the contents of the table into a drawer before heading to the door. "Garret, open the damn door." He pulled it open and stood, blocking the woman's entrance.

"What do you want Rene?"

"No offense but you look like hell." She sniffed slightly. "And you smell like you've just bathed in a still."

"Gee, thanks" He stepped slightly aside, letting her in.

"How are you doing?"

"I'm doing fine."

"Really? Because you're sitting here in your underwear, getting wasted, you haven't moved much from the couch in days, from the looks of it, not in the past week, and you look like you've been sitting here acting worse than a bum. At least most of the bums try and look presentable."

"Hello to you too." He wasn't in any mood to put up with her bitching right now.

"Look, I'm trying to get through all this as unscathed as I can but you didn't just fuck yourself over this time. All of us are screwed because of you. You know how many murderers you helped convict? Two thousand. Two thousand murderers who now have their cases up for appeal. Two thousand. I only have 20 ADA's. All that evidence has to be reexamined by one of your what is it? 10 ME's. You know how much money you're costing the city of Boston over this? People are hounding me left and right over it, I'm loosing my reelection bid, Bob's definitly lost his, could it have least waited for a non-election year to come out? That's probably half the reason that it did. Now I'm ready to collapse, Jordan's ready to collapse because if one good thing came of this it's that Jordan's actually being responsible, who would have thought that it would take her boss and her friend winding up to be a former drug addict and felon to get her to start doing what she was supposed to, but all of us are ready to collapse from everything that is your fault."

He sighed and looked up at her from the couch, listening to her rant but not really absorbing it. Right now all he could think about was the nausea that had set into the pit of his stomach. He hated the comedowns with a passion. "Well?" She looked at him expectantly.

"Rene, if you think I'm going to try and say something to defend myself, I'm not."

"You have nothing to say for yourself?"

"It's my fault, put all the blame on me."

"I am, it's not enough." She poured herself a glass of scotch, emptying the bottle in the process. "Have any more?" She asked and he glared at her, getting up. It was nearly impossible to walk without wanting to vomit. He manged to retrieve the bottle from the cabinet and get back to the couch though, but she looked at him with concern. "Are you OK?"

"Fine." He said and she took a step forward, looking him up and down, stopping to look in his eyes. He tried to look away but she notcied, she had to. There was a brief pause as she let the information sink in.

"You're on something." He shrugged and took a gulp. "You son of a bitch, you haven't even been fired for a whole week yet and you're already right back into this? Don't tell me you were-" He shook his head.

"If I was, don't you think you would have noticed my convient slipping off every few hours?" She glared at hi.

"So this is all recent." He nodded. "So you've just been sitting here on your ass getting high?"

"Yeah." He looked up at her. "What are you going to do, bust me?" He didn't like the look on her face at that suggestion.

"I might."

"A few days in jail and probation, it would do nothing." She shook her head.

"Not when you have a whole bunch of outstanding probation and parole violations. Lets see, you've crossed state lines, you've commited repeat offenses after being let out, you've violated your parole from your very first jail sentence. If I wanted to, you'd wind up in jail for the rest of your life." He shrugged and curled slightly on the couch, wanting for the awful pain in his stomach to go away.

"So do it." She just stared at him. "I was in there for a year and a half already. It's not all that bad. Hot food, the beds aren't that uncomfortable, could actually be pretty good depending on where I wind up." She kept staring. "Might even wind up beneficial to you, you know, putting the guy that conmpletely fucked over Boston in jail."

"You honestly don't care, do you?" He shrugged again.

"I've run from this, buried it, locked it away and it's all come out, I deserve whatever I get." He leaned his head back, trying to make the world stop spinning.

"Are you sure you're all right?" He nodded weakly.

"Just do whatever it takes to restore your name. And the governor's, and whoever else I've fucked over."

"You're not like OD'ing or anything are you?" He laughed.

"The opposite."

"Oh." There was a pause and he looked up at her."Garret-"

"Hm?"

"Don't do anything else stupid. Like leave while wasted off your ass. You've got enough bad publicity as it is, it wouldn't be good to be caught high. After all the public's first thought is going to be that you never quit. Which makes me look worse." He nodded, rolling over slightly.

"Is that all?"

"Yeah." He could feel her eyes still on him, before she turned around and walked out, leaving him alone. His hands were already starting to shake as he pulled the bag out of the drawer, crushing the pill and inhaling the line, waiting for it to course through him and turn his body back to normal.


	7. I Been Thinking

A/N sorry about the huge long wait for this chap, but like, I forgot about this working on other fics, but I'm really really bored in class so I'm posting this. It's almost finished, but like, it won't write because I really really really want the ending togo one way but the rest of the story seems to have an aversion to it...

* * *

He heard the sound of the key turning in the lock and rolled over again, pretending to be asleep. He dug hs face further into the pillow, hoping that she would just ignore him. He felt like shit right now. He made the mistake of not buying enough and now he had none. And his body was reminding him that while he acclimated himself to a substance quickly, it was hell to get it out of him.

He felt too horrible to drag himself out of the bed and down the street, to get into his car and wait on one of the street corners for someone to come to him. He could sense her walk in, and he didn't care that the blanket only half covered him, he kept feeling hot, he kept sweating. He'd only been on it for five days. Five days of it continously, but it didn't matter. He hated his body sometimes. The last time hadn't felt this bad.

"Get up, we're going out." He shook his head. "We are."

"I feel like shit."

"Well maybe if you didn't spend your whole time in here strung out you'd be feeling a whole lot better."

"I'm not going out unless we stop for-"

"No. It's one thing to not take them away. It's another to go out with you while you buy them."

"Then I'm not moving from this bed."

"Garret-"He rolled over, careful to keep himself covered by the blanket as he turned.

"Look, I feel like hell, and I'm not quitting, as soon as I feel decent enough to walk out of here I'm heading right down and getting some more." She frowned.

"Can you at least get up and get out? Go find something to do. Play golf. Play tennis. Do something. Hell, go out and become a professor, so long as you have a fancy looking resume they'll hire you."

"Yeah, with my wonderful public speaking skills."

"Practice. Besides it's gotta be easier when you're all doped up." He smiled slightly.

"Are you actually condoning what I'm doing?"

"I'll condone anything so long as it gets you out of the house and stops you from being so damn apathetic. Hell, I'll condone scientology, at least you'd have to go out of your house to jump on Oprah's couch." He gave a slight chuckle, the first real laugh since things all came crashing down around him.

"Then you'll condone one little stop on the way to go wherever you want me to go." She shook her head.

"You do that in your own time." He shrugged.

"There's no way I'm going out like this."

"There's no way I'm letting you out like that, go in there, shower and get dressed."

"No." She rolled her eyes.

"You're worse than a two year old, you know that?" He shrugged and she looked at him. "What'll it take you to get you out of the house?"

"I told you." She frowned.

"I can't-"

"I never said you had to be there, I said I have to make a detour, you can do whatever you want during that time." She frowned.

"But still, it's the whole idea behind it-"

"I'm going to get it anyway." She sighed.

"Fine. I meet you at Mackenzie's in an hour. I don't want to know what you're going to do during that time, but you are going to clean yourself up a bit before meeting me." She turned and walked out and he couldn't miss the disspointed tone in her voice. He rolled out of the bed, and into the shower.

The hot water made him feel at least a bit better, and by the time he had dried off he wasn't feeling nearly as horrible. He looked at himself in the mirror, he really did look like shit. His eyes were sunken in, he was pale, he looked like crap. But he didn't care. He dressed quickly and headed out. He found himself parked on the street in one of the worst neighborhoods, watching the people who walked by, waiting, patient.

Finally one came up to his window and knocked. He rolled it down just a crack and the man flashed him a grin. "Need something?" He smiled slightly back.

"Oxy?" The man grinned.

"Twenty a pop, how many?" He thumbed through his wallet, pulling out the bills, giving the man the two hundred dollar bills that he had on him. There was a short pause before the small baggie was passed through the crack in the window. "Nice doing buisness with you." With that the man was gone and he took a deep breath. He didn't have to worry. He had at least ten day's worth.

He looked around as he gently crushed one pill, tapping half the powder back into the bag, forming the line with ease. He checked once more around him before slowly inhaling, waiting the moment for it to kick in before putting the car in gear and driving to the resteraunt.

She glared at him as he walked in and slid into the booth with her. "I'm out, aren't I?" He looked over the menu with disinterest, he really wasn't hungry, and when the waiter came by he only ordered an appitizer.

"You're not eating."

"Side effect." She just looked at him for a long minute.

"Can you at least try to find soemthing else to do with your life?" He shrugged.

"Like?"

"Like I said, golf, sail, football, tennis, paint, draw, music, something. Find something to do with your life."

"Why do you care so much?" He bit into a mozzerlla stick, choking it down only for her sake.

"Because you're my best friend and I hate seeing you waste away. I'm almost ready to call Stiles on you." He shrugged.

"There's nothing he can do for me. He can try and stick me on meds I won't take, he could even have me commited, which would just completely destroy my will to live." She glared at him.

"You know, for someone who doesn't care, you can be plenty manipulative." He smiled slightly.

"Observation of the year." She glared at him.

"You don't have to be sarcastic with me on top of things."

"Look, I'm plenty happy doing what I'm doing."

"Are you? Are you happy?" He shrugged.

"As happy as you can be when your entire life comes down around you." She ate her food slowly and in silence.

"I just don't want to see anything happen-"

"Nothing's going to happen to me, aside from the fact that I'm going to be quite happy to spend the rest of my life in comfortable bliss." he picked at his food, eating only because he felt her watchful eyes on him.

"You mean you're going to starve yourself to death or die of liver failure within the next five years." He shook his head.

"I'm better than that."

"Isn't that what they all say?" He frowned, she was right. He'd seen plenty of people say they were better than the substance, thinking they could dominate whatever it was they were using, when in reality they were letting the drugs control them, all under the guise of being in control. But he'd done this before and gotten through, he could do it again. It was easy to keep things in control.


End file.
